BAD MOVIE REVIEW: Wishmaster (1997)

Wishmaster is a special effects guy's wet dream. The gore in this movie is only limited to the imagination of the people creating the effects. I don't really think there was much supervision when it came to the kills in this movie. I'm pretty sure the director just told his crew to go wild because that's what this movie is: WILD.

Like the opening scene for example, a skeleton explodes out of this guys body and then runs around killing people. That's just so awesome.

 I've come for your women and beer.

Some people will argue with me on this, and that's ok, but Wishmaster is, in my opinion, a "Perfect" horror movie. What I mean by perfect is that I can watch this movie OVER AND OVER AND OVER and still enjoy it every time. Actually I think I enjoy it MORE every time I see it. I don't think I could ever get bored with this movie. (Some other movies I would consider perfect include Predator and Re-Animator) Wishmaster isn't perfect, no movie is perfect, but it's perfect for me. And that's all that matters.

I've always liked this movie. From the very first time I saw it up until my umpteenth viewing Sunday. It still shocks me how awesome it is. The effects are top notch, the Wishmaster is so fucking badass, and the CAST AND CREW: Oh lord the cast and crew. THAT is where this movie shines brightest (amongst B movie fans anyway)

• Andrew Divoff as the Wishmaster (Lost, Executive Decision)
• Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger)
• Kane Hodder (Some Friday the 13th sequels and the Hatchet movies)
• Angus Scrimm narrates (The Tall Man from Phantasm)
• Reggie Bannister (Speaking of Phantasm, here's the star)
• Chris Lemmon ("star" of Thunder in Paradise)
• Tony Todd (CANDYMAN!)
• Buck Flower (Most ever John Carpenter movie, he actually has an OPENING credit here)
• Ted Raimi (Sam Raimi's brother. Boy does that guy like dying.)
• Ricco Ross (Aliens)
• Robert Kurtzman (Director of Wishmaster, also an amazing special effects guy for tons of movies)
• Peter Aitkins (writer of Wishmaster, also the writer of Hellraiser 2 & 3)
• And finally, Wes Craven (Executive Producer of Wishmaster, guy that invented Freddy Krueger)

That's a long list. They space out each appearance so well too. It was such a joy to see Reggie Bannister and Buck Flower in the same scene arguing with each other. I love it.

Wishmaster (if you don't already know) is about an evil Genie. They portray them as a race of beings called the Djinn in this movie. They live in the plane of existence between Earth and Hell. One particular Djinn, the Wishmaster, is wrecking havoc on Earth. You see, when someone wakes the Wishmaster he must grant the person that woke him 3 wishes and upon granting the third, the Wishmaster can open the gate from his world to Earth and all the Djinn will take over the world. But a sorcerer traps the Wishmaster in a Ruby. (This is just the first few minutes of the movie.) So we fast forward to present day, a statue is broken that has the Ruby inside and a woman inadvertantly releases the Wishmaster. The Wishmaster spends half the movie granting wishes to strangers in exchange for their soul while searching for the woman that released him. (Which is really fucking awesome, not only because it paces this movie so well but also because the kills are so amazingly gory) Finally, he find her and more amazing things happen. I don't want to ruin the ending for you because the wishes this woman makes are pretty awesome.

Like this one.

It's ok to click that link. There isn't any major spoilers there. It's actually a FREE wish the Wishmaster first grants the woman to get the ball rolling. It's really awesome and actually shows just how amazing Andrew Divoff is as the Wishmaster and this scene portrays the general personality of the Wishmaster. He's like this the whole movie. If you like this scene, you'll like the whole movie.

 Hey baby, when this is over, you wanna come over to my place?

I really can't praise this movie enough. (But I'll sure as hell try) The effects are top notch, the majority of them being actual practical effects. (Which if you know me, are the BEST kind) The CGI included here just enhances any practical effects they got going on. It's quite impressive.

This movie, even with its flaws (what movie doesn't have flaws?), is perfect to me.

BAD MOVIE REVIEW: Warlock: The Armageddon (1993)

I give a lot of movies a lot of shit here at Mr.GR and a lot of those movies deserve it. Warlock: The Armageddon does not.

Warlock: The Armageddon is one of those sequels that you want to see because you like the original a lot but you keep putting off because your scared of how terrible it will be. Like something about the cover and description drives you away because of how different it’ll be from the original. Maybe it’ll be too serious, maybe they’ll fuck up the Warlock really bad, maybe it’ll be too fucking slow, maybe you saw that Warlock 3 doesn’t star Julian Sands so maybe Warlock 2 was so bad that he quit the whole thing altogether, or maybe your afraid that Warlock 2 will ruin your love for the original Warlock. Such is not the case.

After finishing this movie for the second time last night (I wrote this review like 6 months ago and finally am posting it) I completely take back any possible bad feelings I had with this movie. It’s kind of one of those “FUCK! I’m stupid” moments for even attempting to write this thing off before I had a chance to sit down and watch it. Another lesson learned.

What should have triggered me off to this being a GREAT movie was the director. I really should have done my homework. Anthony Hickox, the mastermind behind Waxwork, Waxwork II: Lost in Time, Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth, AND Full Eclipse (which I just saw recently for the first time as well), is the man behind the camera for Warlock: The Armageddon. What a fool I was. I LOVE THIS GUY! And I think he does a phenomenal job with Warlock: The Armageddon. The camera angles are amazing, his use of zoom in several “slow” scenes make the movie truly stand out. Well done sir.

The special effects! You can’t have a good horror movie without good special effects! And this movie does them nearly perfectly. Thankfully, and to my tremendous appreciation, a majority (and I mean MAJORITY) of the special effects are practical effects. So that means little CGI and lot of gory gory goodness. The birth of the Warlock was nasty…and his kills were equally disturbing. I fucking hate when they ruin a good movie with too many computer effects. This movie only uses the computer effects when the Warlock is playing with the stones (the central focus of this movie). It’s not that it’s bad, it just seems like those scenes were designed for out of date 3D technology. And it could very well have been but I don’t know for sure.

So the story, I should probably get around to that. It starts out with Druids (FUCKING DRUIDS!) preventing the rise of Satan’s son. Julian Sands. Using the power of seven sacred stones they stop the Warlock and put him back to hell. From there we fast forward 600 years or so to present day. The time is right again for the Warlock to return and this time he is successful. Now his mission is to collect the sacred stones so he can open the portal to hell to unleash his father…you know him…Satan! So he travels to America capturing the stones. Because apparently the stones hate the rest of the world. But the beauty of this part of the movie is that with each stone he has to get it from the owner…and the owner has to forfeit the stone willingly. It’s the rules. And this is when the gory gory goodness happens. Absolute fucking genius I tell you! So the Warlock tricks and murders everyone into getting their stones. At which point he has one final stone left…and its in the hands of a couple of Druid punks.

I really enjoyed this aspect of the story. The ACTUAL Druid “monks” or whatever didn’t have the power to combat the Warlock so they had to make their children do it. This made for entertainment because they have all these powers but they’re too stupid to know how to use them right. With great power comes great failure. And it was awesome.

Then the movie comes to a climax, and so do I, and it’s all over. The ending…is pretty predictable. I wouldn’t have it any other way though, it’s not necessary to try and be original here. Not with this movie, I fucking love the way it ended. It’s what I wanted to happen and it happened. Thank you Mr. Hickox.

If you need any other reason to see this movie…there is a splendid cast at work here. There’s Julian Sands of course, the motherfuckin Warlock. He kicked ass in the original and now you get to see his ass in Warlock 2. And he also kicks ass too. Then there’s Steve Kahan…you know him better as Captain Ed Murphy in the Lethal Weapon movies. There’s a short appearance by Charles Hallahan. He was “Spider-Head” in The Thing. There’s a very short cameo by Zach Galligan, which is not surprising seeing how he starred in the Waxwork movies. You probably know him as the lead kid in the Gremlins movies. And then a very special appearance by one of my favorite “Where’s Waldo of the Horror Genre” members…George “Buck” Flower.

Why am I so awesome!

He’s in TONS of great horror movies…but always has small parts. He has a passion for dying and I love him for it. You really get to see a lot of him in John Carpenter movies. Always dying that man is.

I can’t tell you enough about how much I loved Warlock: The Armageddon. It has excellent pace. Just when you think you’re going to hit a lull in the movie, it picks up again. Timing between scenes is nearly seemless. There’s always enough going on that you can’t possibly lose interest. I’m looking forward to seeing what they did with Warlock 3, I know it won’t be the same without Julian Sands but I guess I need to be open minded, because my closemindedness about Warlock 2 prevented me from seeing one hell of a movie a long time ago.

(Warlock 1 and 3 are on Netflix Instant Watch. The Armageddon is only available through DVD rental. Sad.)